Ashes
by petalsgettingpicked
Summary: Ryan is back. Seth and Marissa try to move on. Summer turns to someone a bit unexpected. SethMarissaSummerRyan..rectangle. Read my previous fics Elsewhere, Heat, or Forget to Forget if you haven't already. Otherwise, this won't make sense.
1. Seth

**A/N:** I'm baaaaaack! With another installment to my Seth/Marissa-ish series.** Remember, please read my previous fics, Elsewhere, Heat, and Forget to Forget if you haven't already. Otherwise you will not know what's going on. I cannot stress this enough.** I'm sorry but I am sick of getting reviews asking what the hell is going on, because if you only read the summary to my stuff to read the previous fics you would know. And I don't want to put everything together as a full-length multichapter story because that wouldn't work. It wouldn't fit. The writing styles are so different and it wouldn't feel right. But that's just me.

**Ashes**

Ryan is back.

He showed up just yesterday, the day before Thanksgiving. A day after Kirsten had locked herself in the bathroom to cry over him being gone for the ninetieth time. Seventeen days after Seth broke up with Summer. Broke up with Summer to be with Marissa.

But he hasn't talked to Marissa in weeks. He left a message on her answering machine, asking her to meet him at the beach that night – he had to see her. It sounded almost exactly like the message he'd left her the first time he asked to her to meet him in secret. That night he went to the beach but she didn't show up. She never even called him back.

Maybe she needs more time, he thinks. He doesn't know what she needs more time for, but he waits anyway. Waits for her to come back to him, he tells himself. Sometimes he thinks he feels her eyes on him when they're both at their lockers or when she stands behind him in the coffee line. Or whenever he thinks about her.

Sometimes he also sees Summer in the hallway, and whenever he does she gives him a cold glare then looks away. Seth doesn't know why. He knows that their breakup hit her pretty hard but they've had rough patches like this before. Though this time she seems to have taken it much worse than the last few times.

Back in July Seth spent hours drawing and drawing and drawing in his sketchbook whenever he wasn't with Marissa. Unlike the previous summer, these pages were filled with sketches of Cosmo Girl. Somehow he'd forgotten how to draw Little Miss Vixen. He just couldn't form the features in her face anymore. One day Marissa came over and discovered these drawings. Seth thought she would think he was creepy and stop seeing him but instead she smiled, and asked if she could keep one or two or three, or may be even four. He let her select the one she wanted and afterwards she requested one of The Ironist. He asked why. She said, _Because I want a picture of you to look at_. It didn't really answer anything but he gave her one anyway. She tucked the drawings into her purse and took them home with her. Later that month he visited her and saw The Ironist hanging on her bedroom wall, surrounded by every other picture he had given her. He wonders now if they are still there, if maybe she looks at them from her bed at night, the moonlight streaming in to illuminate them so she could see.

The night Ryan came back Seth was scribbling down more pictures of her when his dad showed up in his room.

_Come downstairs,_ he said.

Seth followed him into the kitchen and saw Ryan for the first time in months. He was holding a cup of coffee and trying to sip it as Seth's mom dabbed at the dried blood on his face with a washcloth.

_Hey,_ he said.

_What happened?_ Seth asked.

_Got in a fight with my new step dad. Nothing new. Got kicked out this time, though,_ he replied.

Seth didn't respond, just turned around and went back to his room. He thought about Marissa. Maybe Ryan wanted her back. He hopes not. She killed his brother – that leaves a huge scar in their relationship, right?

But what if _she_ wanted him back? What if she had gotten over Seth? It wouldn't make much sense. To just be with someone and get over him in a week or two.

He stares at the ceiling and thinks. Outside, he can hear a breeze whispering. It's getting colder. Even in Newport winter has its symptoms. He considers calling Marissa again. Maybe – hopefully - he won't get her voicemail.

He's sick of feeling like this, but loves it just the same. In June, all he could think about was Summer, Summer, Summer. Then she dumped him and flew out of the state. Then Marissa was lonely and entered the picture. Now Seth isn't able stop thinking about her.

He sits up and stares at the wall. His posters and drawings stare back. He feels a hammer pounding in his head. He leans back and closes his eyes. All he sees is caramel-tinted skin and reddened lips parting in a smile. All he sees is Marissa.


	2. Marissa

**A/N:** No one's been reading this, but oh, well. I needed to update.

Ryan is back.

Marissa doesn't know what to think. Part of her wants to see him. Part of her doesn't. Then there's a tiny little fraction of her that wants to see him, just so she could see Seth.

But she knows that Ryan doesn't want to see her. She was the reason he left, after all.

She found out he'd returned when her mother paraded into her room carrying a basket of laundry (even though her mother didn't even know where the laundry room was) and casually brought it up.

Marissa checked her voicemail the other day. There werenine messages from Seth. She hasn't replied to any of them yet, and doesn't intend to. Sometimes she thinks it's creepy. Sometimes, she even thinks it's sweet.

Summer has stopped talking to her altogether, too. She tries to catch her eye in the halls at school, anyway, but Summer never returns her glance. Marissa can't blame her. If her best friend had snuck off with her boyfriend then Marissa would probably never talk to her again, either.

Actually – she realizes – that already has happened to her, two years ago with Luke and Holly. She tells herself that her situation was different - much, much different from that. That she and Seth had actually felt something between each other. That Luke and Holly were only attracted to each other because it was forbidden. Or something.

She pretends she isn't being hypocritical.

Marissa also sees Seth Cohen at school. She tells herself he isn't watching her. She used to think it was cute. She used to want to catch his eye. Now, she just thinks it's creepy.

She's taken down the Cosmo Girl drawings he'd given her months ago. They were too dangerous. Her mother had sometimes eyed them suspiciously and they had already destroyed her friendship with Summer. Now they lay hidden underneath her bed, where they would sit in the dark and gather dust until spring cleaning rolled around.

A few weeks ago Seth had a left a message on her cell phone that asked her to meet him at the beach. Marissa knows that Seth thinks she didn't show up. She actually did. She'dgone early but left before he even got there. That way, if she ever decided to turn on her phone and talk to him, she wouldn't be lying if she told him she did go to see him that night. Because she _did_ go to see him.

She sits by the pool on a lounge chair. The sun is long gone and the wind tickles her hair. Her mother has popped outside a few times to ask her why she wants to go swimming at the end of November but she doesn't answer. Eventually she stands up. Walks over to the pool and dips her toe in. The water is cold. She jumps in. Water splashes. Marissa hopes that Seth Cohen will be too busy playing video games with Ryan so that he'll forget to call her, and washes away every bit of him throughout the chlorine -but she still feels the bitter sting it leaves in her eyes.


End file.
